ferocity equal to his power, he must have exterminated a very large part of the animal creation.

Sir Everard Home is of opinion, that the elephant has not a musical ear; but, however this may be, the animal is evidently not insensible to musical sounds. We have observed the female elephant now at Mr. Cross's menagerie bring forward her ears, as the Guards have marched from the adjoining barrack to the loud notes of a military band; and the motions of her restless body have certainly been adapted to the movement of the air, which she gave evidence of having heard. Sir Everard Home presents us with an example of the power of the elephant to discriminate between the two great properties of musical sounds-a different capacity, certainly, from that of a musical ear, but still very remarkable :

"As a matter of curiosity, I got Mr. Broadwood to send one of his tuners with a pianoforte to the menageries of wild beasts in Exeter Change, that I might know the effect of acute and grave sounds upon the ear of a full-grown elephant. The acute sounds seemed hardly to attract his notice; but as soon as the grave notes were struck, he became all attention, brought forward the large external ear, tried to discover where the sounds came from, remained in the attitude of listening, and after some time made noises by no means of dissatisfaction."

An experiment upon the musical capacity of the elephant was made upon the male and female of the Jardin des Plantes, in 1798. The result is described at great length in the "Décade Philosophique," a periodical work of that time; and, making every allowance for the apparent exaggerations of some of the statements, it seems tolerably certain that the elephants were differently affected by different pieces of music: although we may suspect that the en

thusiasm of the musician had something to do with the assertion, that the tender air of charmante Gabrielle plunged them into a species of voluptuous languor, and that the lively movement of ça ira roused them to an extraordinary state of excitement. The whole narrative certainly adds some confirmation to the account which Ælian gives of the modulated dance of the elephants of Germanicus.

We have seen that the elephant rarely uses his trunk as a weapon. But nature has given him most formidable means for resisting his enemies. His tusks, or, as the French naturalists more properly call them, his défenses, enable him not only to clear his way through the thick forests in which he lives, by rooting up small trees and tearing down cross branches, in doing which service they effectually protect his face and proboscis from injury; but they qualify him for warding off the attacks of the wily tiger and the furious rhinoceros, often securing him the victory by one blow which transfixes the assailant to the earth. At particular seasons, when the passions of the male elephant are furiously excited, the more powerful of the herd will wound or destroy the weaker with their tusks. Mr. Corse thus saw a stately male elephant gore two small elephants, in the midst of the herd, in a terrific manner. "When the poor animals were thrown down, conscious of their impending fate, they roared most piteously; but notwithstanding their prostrate situation and submissive cries, he unfeelingly and deliberately drove his tusks through, and transfixed them to the ground*." Large male elephants, which in Hindostan are called goondahs, are often found wandering from the herd; and the natives believe that they are driven from the community as a punishment for their ferocious excesses. Mr. Corse, however, doubts this; and he Phil. Trans, 1799.

states that at the display of rage which he witnessed, none of the large elephants, not even the dams of the sufferers, came near to relieve them."

Though the opinion has long been exploded that the elephant is unable to lie down, it is probable that, as he advances in age, he often sleeps in a standing posture. The popular notion was, according to Sir T. Brown, that" it sleepeth against a tree; which the hunters observing do saw it almost asunder; whereon the beast relying, by the fall of the tree falls also down itself, and is able to rise no more." When an elephant is first taken by the hunters, he will seldom lie down to sleep for several months; and some have been known obstinately to stand a year at the place where they were picketed. When they are sick, they pertinaciously stand as long as they are able; if they lie down, no hope of recovery remains*. We have seen that Mr. Cross's elephant would not lie down unless her keeper were in her den; and it is probable, that, in a wild state, when the elephant is at all disturbed or apprehensive of danger, he takes a short sleep standing, if he sleep at all. When he thus sleeps, it is most probable that his tusks furnish him a support; and that, placing them against a tree, he relieves the weight which his head carries, and enjoys a partial repose with tolerable ease. An example of this was given by the elephant of Louis XIV. For the last five years of his life he did not lie down, till he was sick; and "he employed his tusks in making two cavities in the two faces of a stone buttress which projected from the wall of his cell, and these cavities served him for a support when he slept, his tusks being fixed in them†."

The tusks of the elephant correspond with the canine teeth in other quadrupeds. It was an old opinion, which has been often refuted, that the tusks * Williamson. + Perrault Mémoires, vol. ii. p. 512.

of elephants are horns. Although the substance of which they are composed, called ivory, is certainly different from the bone of other teeth, it is formed like other teeth by successive secretions from a pulpy root (noyau). The tusk has no adhesion to this root, but is held in its alveole (socket) as a nail is held in a plank, by the elasticity of the parts alone. The external direction of the tusk may be somewhat changed, by accident, or design, for this reason. The ivory is formed, from within, by depositions of very thin laminaæ; so that the outer surface will continue to bear any mark which is scratched on it. Instances have repeatedly occurred of musket-balls having been found imbedded in the tusk of an elephant, without any visible external aperture; and this curious circumstance has given rise to some controversy among anatomists. Some have thought that the aperture was filled up by the organic force of the tusk; but it is likely, that in many cases, the foreign substance did not enter at the place where it was found. We have, however, a piece of ivory lying before us, in the solid substance of which a wrought-iron musket ball is imbedded, about an inch from the surface; and the place where the ball entered is distinctly seen, the aperture being, indeed, filled up by a new deposition, but having the appearance of a knot in a tree. This piece of ivory was cut in Mr. Hawkins's pianoforte manufactory, in 1805, and was lent to us by that gentleman. There are similar specimens in the Museum of the London University. A ball, or other hard substance, may penetrate the tusk at the hollow part, and descend into the solid, in a manner which is thus clearly explained: "If a ball penetrate the side of a tusk, cross the cavity, and lodge in the slightest way on the opposite side, it will become covered towards the

VOL. II.

H

cavity by the newly deposited layers of ivory, while no opening will exist between it and the surface to account for its entrance. If it have only sufficient force to enter, it will probably sink, by its own weight, between the pulp and tooth, until it rests at the bottom of the cavity. It there becomes surrounded by new layers of ivory; and as the tusk is gradually worn away, and supplied by new depositions, it will soon be found in the centre of the solid part of the tooth. Lastly, a foreign body may enter the tusk from above, as the plate of bone which forms its socket is thin; and if this descends to the lower part of the cavity, it may become imbedded by the subsequent formations of ivory. This must have happened in a case where a spear-head was found in an elephant's tooth. The long axis of the foreign body corresponded to that of the cavity. No opening for its admission could be discovered; and it is very clear that no human strength could drive such a body through the side of a tusk*" In the section of the elephant's head, at p. 47, e exhibits the alveole of the tusk, and f its cavity opened, to shew the space which the pulp occupies.

The elephant has milk-tusks which he sheds between the first and second year, when not two inches in length. In a month or two after this process the permanent tusks cut the gum. These second tusks remain during the life of the animal; they are never again shed. The tusks of the Indian female are very small in comparison with those of the male; but they are used as weapons of defence against other elephants. The tusks of the male vary in size according to the species and the age of the animal. Those of the Indian elephant of Bengal rarely exceed seventy

Phil. Trans. 1801; quotedin Lawrence's and Coulson's trans

́ation of Blumenbach.